There’s a spooky, otherworldly intelligence on Earth—and it’s called the slime mold! That may sound like a horror movie, but it’s real.

And it grows in leaf litter … perhaps in the woods behind your house, waiting for darkness to creep under your door …

Ok, not that last part. But slime molds can creep and carry out many complex behaviors—all without a brain!

Slime molds aren’t really a mold at all, but a strange mix of animal and fungal characteristics. And they’ve been around for 600 million years. Today, their 900 species separate into two types: plasmodial and cellular slime molds.

The plasmodium begins as a single-celled organism, then starts to divide its nucleus but doesn’t divide cells. The result is sometimes thousands of nuclei living within one huge cell membrane …

Which can grow to several feet across, slither around, grow feet and navigate a maze. It can find food and remember where it found it. It can spread itself into networks, like tree branches or veins, that mimic the most efficiently planned road networks.

Cellular slime molds are multicellular creatures that can shape themselves into sluglike forms and creep across the ground.

When conditions are right, both types can sprout fruiting bodies, similar to mushrooms, which release spores and grow into new slime molds.

Try that on for a Halloween costume!